buzzing with adventure!

Hives were left to pollinate the family blueberry field at The Nancy Place. Walking home from harvesting cedar posts, Shawn heard a buzzing swarm .

The new colony, swarming around the new queen protectively.

It was hard to get them all into the box

A view of the field with the original hive boxes

Our beloved John Deere, always ready for the next adventure.

Sadly, after working to collect this swarm for two days, building a quick box based on the top bar model (complete with waxed interior bars), providing easy access to raw honey and strawberry blossoms-- the worker bees all left. They left their queen! It could be colony collapse disorder-- a disorder affecting honeybees that results in the worker bees leaving the hive-- or maybe just confusion from the repeated harassment-- either way, we learned a lot but were ultimately unsuccessful.